For our first thirty or so years we grow. After that everyone begins to age – way it is. But somewhere between aging and dying is a phase I call “olding”. I can’t put a date on it that applies everyone, but for me it was my 70th birthday.

When I turned 40 it was no big deal. I wondered why so many people dreaded it.

When I turned 50 I laughed all day, took a friend to lunch and made plans to redecorate our townhouse as a present to myself.

When I turned 60 I wasn’t laughing, but I wasn’t crying either. It wasn’t so bad – this 60 thing.

But when I turned 70 it was like somebody flipped the Old Switch! Age spots, crepey skin, aches and pains in the morning until I got “warmed up”. And doctors who started conversations with, “Well, at your age…” I began relating to my grandmother a lot. (My mother and father both died in their sixties so they never got old. My maternal grandmother lived to be 99 ½ and she was active for 90 of those years.)

And so I discovered that nobody (well, hardly anybody) wants to talk about olding. If you say, “I’m old” you know what they say, right? They say, “No! You aren’t old.” I am and I think I’m lucky.

A lot of people write about aging and/or dying but hardly anybody writes about Phase 3 – Olding. There’s a lot to talk about and so I’m starting this conversation.

It’s not about fighting or defying or ignoring age. It’s about embracing and adjusting and enjoying. And laughing.

About me …

I have lived in Las Vegas since 1977. I came here with my husband, an Air Force fighter pilot. At the end of one year the pilot “flew away”. I hadn’t held a job since our son was born. I didn’t know anybody in Vegas who wasn’t somehow affiliated with the military. But I loved the West and chose to stay rather than return to the place I grew up – Georgia.

I got a job, re-married, started a business which morphed into another business and then another one. We raised two boys (his and mine) to become fine men. And I made many, many friends. Social media has enabled me to broaden my scope of friends. I care just as much about the ones across the country as I do the ones around the corner.

Since I am a serial entrepreneur, I can’t imagine not having a business. So a friend and I sell Stuff on eBay and Amazon. We call ourselves The Stuff Chicks. It keeps us out of trouble. Well, most of the time.